Public health practitioners under the aegis of Health Promotion and Education Alumni Association Ibadan College of Medicine (HPEAAICM) have warned people against relying on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in self-diagnosis and medical prescriptions, noting that such practices may be injurious to health.

They said the incidence of people consulting the internet instead of consulting qualified medical practitioners is on the rise, warning that medications prescribed by the AI or sourced online may not take into consideration the medical history of patients and therefore, could cause more harm than good.

The stakeholders spoke on Tuesday at the opening of a 2-day Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the HPEAAICM with the theme ?Artificial Intelligence and Innovations in Public Health? in Ibadan.

Speaking, the President of the Association, Dr. Bright Orji, said AI has come to stay, and there is a need for moderation in its usage, particularly for public health consumers and practitioners alike.

He said the conference seeks to open the eyes of the stakeholders in the public health sector to the various possibilities inherent in AI as it relates to public health and safety and how practitioners can also leverage the tools for improved service delivery while calling their attention to the various pitfalls.

Dr Orji said, ?The reason we want to do this is so that everyone is well abreast of what to do. You can observe that even the social media is being misused and abused. So it?s very important that a whole lot of information and of course, there is disinformation in the age that we live in today.

?The emergence of Covid-19 and Ebola taught us great lessons. In fact, during the period of Ebola, people were drinking bags of salt as a way to prevent it. But you can see that that information is abused, it?s not the way it should be. So what we are doing now is to ensure that Artificial intelligence is properly deployed, and also, we should have regulations on how AI should really be used so that people can use it, benefit from it, and use it to improve our society and improve the lives of mankind.

?Many people believe in AI and what we?re saying is the fact that they should use it appropriately. With AI, there are so many things you can do in a second. So this is part of the benefit we want to ensure. With AI, Medical doctors going on ward rounds can be assisted to ensure that their ward round is facilitated, evidence-based, and can improve the lives of their patients.?

The President of the Ibadan College of Medicine Alumni Association (ICOMAA) Worldwide, Professor Emmanuel Otolorin, said although AI comes with many opportunities that can be harnessed, public health consumers and practitioners must also be aware that AI can hallucinate and create what doesn?t exist.

He warned that individuals should not see AI as all-knowing and cannot cannot take the place of professional.

Professor Otolorin said?Artificial intelligence comes with a lot of opportunities that can be deployed to improve health care delivery. Yes, it might make the work of healthcare providers easier, but also we have to be very careful in how we deploy the numerous tools that are available on AI platforms.

?There are tools for processes that can be applied in health care delivery, and I think that we?re quite new in the process now, but over time, people are going to be dissecting the different applications that are there and see how they can be deployed, of course, they can also be abused.

?We have to be careful that people don?t begin to use AI in place of health care workers because some AI tools, I would say, hallucinate.

?My son is a computer scientist and he actually showed me how an AI tool created the drug that doesn?t exist and also describes side effects of the drug that actually doesn?t exist. So AI can hallucinate. So you have to be a content expert to know what it?s talking about.

?So if you use an AI tool and you ask it to do something, you have to be knowledgeable enough to know that what it had done is correct and not just adopt it.?

He said the Nigeria Medical and Dental Council will deal decisively with medical practitioners who make mistakes on account of using AI. (Nigerian Tribune)

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